What's your favorite NS4 areas?

[LinuxPup]

I'd like to get a figure for what you guys like/dislike... thinking about adding something new, but want to know you think. Specifically what is it you like about certain areas? Obviously Dwarf Home is a popular one for example...

[cRaZy8or5e]

Most of the planar areas have their points of interest, the puzzles of HoK, the tileset of skara and the way it is set up, the sheer difficulty and exciting challenge of Celestia/Abyss/Neg plane. For sheer size, scope, difficulty of mobs, variability in mobs, and visual candy, Dragon Eyrie has to be my favorite. The zone on the way down to the mist dragon and Viritru(is that the name) itself is just cool all around.

[Shamedmonkey]

Gotta go with DWP here. Challenging, but not to the point of unfairness.

[Rufio]

Loot and exp are big draws. Really exp trumps all else. Very few people go to dwarf home for loot, It just happens to be the fastest exp at higher levels. When you start getting into the more difficult planes, exp doesn't really increase all that much, and it is much slower traveling because the mobs are a lot more difficult, so loot is the reason to go. A goblin shaman is cr 35, and an Abyssal fiend is cr 38. One abyssal fiend can be a tough fight for a party, while a decent spotter could tank a whole room full of shamans solo. Clearly you aren't going to be killing abyssal fiends just for the exp, you want the loot. Places like illithids don't see much travel because the loot rewards don't really justify the challenge. People also tend to shy away from some of the tough areas for fear of party wipes and exp loss, even if the loot is good. It seem like to me a way to draw people to the tougher planes are mobs that scale in difficulty, like HoD had the fields that ease you into the halls, and the first few DE maps ease you into the later areas when the tougher mobs such as the wyrms and disciples appear.

I really like DE myself, lots of variety, good loot, areas that are survivable with a party in the low-mid 30's, but also areas that are challenging for 40's, nothing with critical immunities, and decent exp.

[Midterm]

I like any area with a unique loot/reward at the end that makes it worthwhile.

Lets compare popular places:

Skara:
- King Addi's Belt, very good belt that should take you all the way to epic, not too hard to get
- Royal Sickle, awesome for clerics and shifters for their dc stun, as well as their multiple elemental damages (including pos)
- Skara Shield, ONLY shield that gives a cleric slot (perfect for builds abusing the 1 cleric for divine shield/power)
- Twighlight Rapier, a pretty damn good finesse weapon, Skara SS also good
- Acolyte's gloves, a bracer that gives str, attack bonus, and slots.

Dwarfs
- Ragnar's Burial Armor, pretty much standard fair for any fighter out there
- Other armors and shields, generally have very high DR and AC rating
- Dwarven holy plate (still havn't found one as dwarven clerics are rare to find)
- Advisor's cloak, a very good CHA cloak until you can get your hands on the Posi plane one

Posi Plane
- The Scythe. Need I say more?
- Xel Nag Cloak
- Aoa belt
- Lumi equips

Frostdale Giants
- Amulet of Ice, good for people without crafters
- First decent scythe found on regular mobs
- Other generic equips good for selling

Those are the places I do the most... as a group.

As for a new area, I think one should be developed for levels 6+. Too often everyone goes up the mountain. Too often high levels take pleasure in wiping these parties off the mountain. Even though loot on the mountain isn't that great, you can still get Grezor's staff, something alot of people with UMD farm for their greater bull's/cat's (assuming you don't have an arcane crafter). There is Gnolls of course, but that is a bit far off from Avendell, and getting past all the archers is a pain at those levels, while giants are generally melee-centric and very predictable.

When the mountain is full, I do alot of xping at Formians. They do have high SR for their level, but they generally go down pretty quick and they clump together alot. There's also tons of treasure chests for looting to pay for the trip down to Angmar's Waste.

[Tsavong]

I'm going with Shamed I like DWP the most good variety and challenge there and fun to do and some nice loot. Along with fighting Lolth if you get to the end what's not to love about that.

Skara is probably my preferred non planner area as its interesting with again lots of different mobs to fight.

[mining]

So far, by far, my favourite area is definitely posi/cel negi/abyss. They're pretty fun to play for all classes, there's stuff that melees excel at, casters have a pretty solid role.

Non planar, I'd have to say the NC maps. Massive range of challenges, and you pretty much never have to leave that area from 1-25 if you didn't want to. (though, at 16, might as well ferry to sunken until you can handle zons and skarans)
I also really like LA for good levelling.

[Nyeleni]

Water Plane by far, altho there is no much adventuring there. I like the athmosphere, the convoluted setting which took me a while to decipher. The difficulty is perhaps a bit too high for that CR, but I like a challenge.

DWP is certainly nice, but as I don't have a rogue yet, I rarely go into the heart of it.

I like Plane of Negative Energy too. The light and the spawns are just right. They are challenging and you have always to be wary. Or you will be either smitten by a death giant or killed by another minion .

[VagaStorm]

HoK is by far my favorite planar area. Its fun, the mobs are great and thers a few things there besides genociding mobs ;..; as for non epic areas, the menzoloths are great to. Wery nicly put together mobs, to bad the xp there dosent justify going there more often

[Tru3Fals3]

i going to go with crazy on this dragon eyrie

-great design and tileset, i rarely get lag and it looks great.
-interesting mobs, wide range of different mobs that require different builds to beat.
-good xp, with decent parties you make enough xp without insane difficulty to make it worthwhile.
-fantastic gear, huge range of incredibly usefull gear with a decent drop rate.
-size, de is huge with lots of different areas.
-multiple bosses, theres a large amount of bosses with great gear that are great fun to fight.
-skills are usefull, one of those areas where rogue skills are needed.
-requirement to get in, i like the added task of collecting dragon parts.
-scaling difficulty, areas range from fairly easy to incredibly hard.

i also like dwp for similar reasons (except for umbers lol, useless useless umbers )

[Nyeleni]

True, Dragon Eyrie is very complete. Feels almost like another world outside of NS4 or Aetheria. Which the latter actually is .
Should be added to the favourite hunting grounds.

[Tal]

DE and DWP for the same reasons mentioned previously by others.

[Hyk]

Gnolls

[Mixtli]

Water plane

[Shadowalker]

Boars tent... always come out feeling 'happy'